Belle of the Anna Ball Chosen for the 198th Time

MTI-Hungary Today 2023.07.31.

Alíz Dévényi was chosen as the belle of the ball on Saturday night; Laura Szilassy was named first lady-in-waiting, and Anna Csenke as second lady-in-waiting.

Alíz Dévényi, 19, from Budapest, has just graduated from high school. She said that she loves the ball atmosphere and would later like to take up photography. The first lady of the ball, 18-year-old Laura Szilassy from Balatonfüred, has been studying at a high school in Budapest for four years and is also a competitive dancer. The second lady-in-waiting, 17-year-old Anna Csenke from Békéscsaba, is studying to be a doctor in London and plays tennis competitively.

In addition to the golden apple, the belle of the Anna Ball received a modernized Victoria pattern Herend vase, while the ladies-in-waiting took home a Rothschild and Apponyi pattern vase.

Alíz Dévényi, Belle of the 198th Anna Ball in Balatonfüred. Photo: MTI/Tibor Katona

Fact

The Anna ball is traditionally the feast of debutantes, when parents introduce their grown-up children to society. The 18-year-old girls living in Balatonfüred are invited to the Ball by the town. The first Anna ball was organized on the 26th of July 1825, in Balatonfüred (on the northern shore of Lake Balaton) at the Horváth house in honor of Anna Krisztina, the daughter of Fülöp János Szentgyörgyi Horváth. The house of the Horváth family was not only the center of social life in Balatonfüred, but also a kind of spiritual workshop, where the prominent persons of the Reform Era (1825–1848) starting at the beginning of the 19th century gathered from time to time.

It was on that evening in 1825, that the young Anna Krisztina met her future husband, Ernő Kiss, a hussar lieutenant-general who later became a martyr-general of Arad in the 1848-49 War of Independence.

In his memory, the Herend porcelain statue of a hussar has been presented every year since 2003, to a man who did and does a lot for the culture and spiritual life of Balatonfüred. This year, the award was presented to Ernő Lengyel, the owner of the Anna Grand Hotel, host of the balls for almost 20 years.

The Anna Grand Hotel in Balatonfüred. Photo: Facebook/Anna Grand Hotel

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Featured image: Photo: MTI/Tibor Katona